Luigi Mangione has abruptly scrapped the psychiatric defense he planned to use at his upcoming trial in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
“The defense respectfully withdraws CPL 250.10 notice at this time,” the accused killer’s lawyers wrote to Judge Gregory Carro in Manhattan Supreme Court.
The letter — which refer to the specific part of New York’s criminal code — means Mangione no longer plans to claim he was overtaken by an “extreme emotional disturbance” when he gunned down Thompson on a Midtown sidewalk in December 2024.
The eyebrow-raising tactic would have knocked the charge down to manslaughter instead of murder — carrying less prison time — if jurors bought it.
Mangione’s sudden strategy shift came just one day after the judge revealed that the accused assassin’s lawyers planned to use the mental health defense at his upcoming Sept. 8. state trial.
A spokeswoman representing his legal team refused to explain the sudden 180-degree turn when reached Thursday by the Post.
Legal experts polled by the Post Wednesday were split on whether the ploy would work, but they agreed that could be Mangione’s best option given the mountain of physical evidence tying him to Thompson’s killing.
Heather Cucolo, a criminal law professor at New York Law School, said a jury “is going to have a difficult time with this” because of evidence that Mangione meticulously planned the execution, including by lying in wait outside Thompson’s hotel in Midtown before the broad daylight shooting.
But defense attorney Ron Kuby called the psych strategy “sort of the perfect defense” because it would allow Mangione’s lawyers to highlight the perils of the healthcare system as they probed the reasons for Mangione’s alleged descent into mental illness.
